The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watchers Council Results

The Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and the results are in for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

Memorial Day was a week ago, and this week saw the anniversaries of the two great battles of WWII that defeated evil, preserved our freedom and saved our Republic. It says a great deal that President Obama has never issued so much as a proclamation to commemorate the battle of Midway, and has not issued one or made any mention of D-Day, the invasion of Normandy for two years. But then, given his attempts to take away VA benefits from our wounded warriors, disenfranchise the votes of active duty military and hollow out our military with draconian cuts, that’s to be expected.

Meanwhile the men and women who saved us from Hitler and the Japanese fascists grow older,and every day more of them answer the call for that final mustering out.

But as this week’s winner, The Right Planet reminds us in his winning post, Memorial Day Tribute: My Granddad , they will live forever as long as we remember the great gift of freedom they gave us. Here’s a slice of an amazing story:

As a kid, there were times I spent the summer with my family and Grandparents. I have fond memories of those times with my Grandparents. Of course, I’m partial to my beloved late Granddad (Grandmother too), but almost everyone who knew him loved him. He had a quiet inner-strength that was mesmerizing; and he always looked people in the eye and made them feel like they were the only person in the room. He cared. He loved. He worked. He sacrificed. He knew all about sacrifice.

See, Grandad was a flight engineer on a B-17 bomber during World War II. He participated in the North African campaign and eventually flew missions out of Italy with the 15th Air Forces, 483rd Bomb Group (B-17), 817th Bomb Squadron. Unlike their comrades flying missions out of England, U.S. airmen flying out of Italy were required to fly 50 combat missions before being rotated out, as opposed to 25 missions. At one point during the air campaign over Nazi Europe, losses for the U.S. Army Air Corps and the R.A.F. were approaching sixty percent. Fortunately, drop tanks were developed for Allied fighter planes so they could escort bombers all the way to the target area and losses began to decrease dramatically. But it was always dangerous and lethal over the skies of Nazi Europe.

The 39th Mission

Not too long ago, my mother obtained a copy of the actual battle report of my Grandad’s last mission over Nazi Germany. I read it and was chilled to the bone by what I read.

On July 18, 1944, my Granddad was on his 39th mission with the 15th Air Forces, 483rd Bomb Group, 817th Bomb Squadron. The entire bombardment group (B.G.) was assigned the target area of Memmingen, Germany, without fighter escort or other group support.

Our Non-Council winner, A Train Near Magdeburg submitted by The Right Planet mined a similar theme, a moving account by one George C. Gross, formerly a tank commander with the 743rd Tank Battalion,interviewed about his encounter with some Holocaust survivors from the camps left by the Nazis to die in a disabled, wrecked railroad car. Do take a minute to read it.

Here are this week’s full results. Rhymes With Right, The Mellow Jihadi and New Zeal were unable to vote this week, but none were affected by the 2/3 vote penalty: